Monday, April 10, 2017

Who'll Stop The Rain? - vs. Tigers (L 3-6, W 11-2)

I’m more used to Bear weather Opening Day- “wrath of spring”
seems more like a late April/early May phenomena. In a rain delay brought to you by Ford
Mustang (featuring the Tigers’ faces with all of the collective enthusiasm of parents
in the last ten minutes of a preschool recital) and by Modelo (“Rainy Opening
Day- throw a lime in that beer and pretend it’s Memorial Day!”), baseball
Christmas would have to wait until 26th (May, that is, Friday
doubleheader) to get going.

Continuing
the trend of basically every season since ’77 (cutting Thunderstruck on the 40th
of the Hitmen is a bigger unforgivable sin than the handling of the weather),
but it looks like another “live by the longball die by the longball” kind of
squad: Quintana had the odd poor outing (cue the “trade value looks like the
Guaranteed Rate logo” reference here). Verlander on Opening Day is admittedly a
rough draw, and the delay turned postponed throws off the first game jitters
and adrenaline. Jose misses his spots to the tune of 3 home runs, Verlander
hits them to the tune of 10 Ks.

The
next day is a different story: playing to a crowd of “aww, good for you”, the
Sox open the floodgates in their first win of the year. Botched throw home on a
Jacob May bunt attempts sets the tone and stage for a two run second, before
home runs by Soto (pair of ‘em) and Davidson (halfway up the bleachers, clanks
and rolls down to the first row) put it out of reach halfway in. James Shields
smiles heading to the dugout. Closed off upper deck and ignoring Skilling be
damned, these are the games you dream of.

Rebuilding,
retooling, possibly tanking, it’s the little things that count. .500 on the
year, dingers a-plenty, and beating Detroit the fun way taking us into the next
series. Take it while we have it.